<p>The Thai authorities have blocked access to a youtube clip of the Charlie Chaplin's movie ‘the Great Dictator’.</p> <p>On 21 June 2017, a Facebook user reported that an access to a Youtube clip of the movie ‘<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Dictator">the Great Dictator</a>’ was blocked by&nbsp;the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society according to the&nbsp;<a href="https://web.facebook.com/lawyercenter2014/posts/1355420027841181">Thai Lawyer for Human Rights (TLHR)</a>. &nbsp;</p>

<p>On a Saturday night in mid-September 2013 I was sat at table in a deserted restaurant in an exclusive beachside resort in Phuket. My companions were graduate students and researchers from Chulalongkorn University and Japan’s prestigious Kyoto University.</p>

<p>The YouTube channel of an anti-junta journalist who fled to the US after the 2014 coup d’état has been blocked from audiences in Thailand. &nbsp;</p> <p>On 20 April 2017, the YouTube channel&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpqKFS9qHhYCE_k6_wVQdBw">‘Jom Voice’</a>&nbsp;of Jom Petpradab, a veteran journalist now living in self-exile in the US, was found blocked.</p> <p>“[This channel] cannot be watched from your country!” reads the statement on YouTube.</p>

<p>The Thai authorities have detained youths who allegedly carried out DDoS attacks against government websites in protest against the controversial new Computer Crime Act. &nbsp;</p> <p>On 21 December 2016, Somsak Khaosuwan, Deputy Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (MDES), revealed that the police have detained youths who were allegedly involved in carrying out Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on the websites of ministries and state agencies.</p>

<p dir="ltr">A civil society group has called on people to engage in a social media campaign to prevent the junta’s lawmakers to pass the new draconian Computer Crime Bill.</p>

<p dir="ltr">The amended version of the controversial Computer Crime Act will give the Thai authorities a blank check to close down websites as the regime wishes, said an internet freedom advocate. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

<p>Six civil organizations denounced the eight Digital Economy bills recently approved by the junta, saying they are national security bills in disguise and that the bill will pave the way for a state monopoly of the telecommunication business.</p>

<p>The Thai junta has approved a proposed bill which will allow the authorities to conduct mass surveillance on every means of communication in the name of “national security”.</p>